


brothers, maybe

by biscuits_and_tea



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Hope you like it anyway, Pre-Canon, SI-5, basically just them being sort of happy, goddard futuristics has a therapy department now and i want to write more about it, i love these siblings too much, it's 2013 so excuse the temple run, jacobi trusts kepler too much and it makes me sad, there's too much dialogue, this has been hanging in my docs for months
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14716433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuits_and_tea/pseuds/biscuits_and_tea
Summary: The SI-5 are on a stakeout. Jacobi and Maxwell bond.





	brothers, maybe

PRAGUE, 2013

The television in the corner of their drab hotel room blares a kiddie TV-show, the contrast turned up far too high so that the colours are giddying. There’s a catchy theme song in broken English about brotherhood and friendship, but Maxwell isn’t listening, too busy rummaging through Jacobi’s backpack for the last of the popcorn.

“Jesus, Jacobi, how much nitroglycerin do you carry round with you on a daily basis?! Isn’t that a bad idea?”

He responds absently, staring at the screen cross-legged in bed: “We’re a brave band of brothers, us three.”

“What?” Maxwell sounds annoyed, discarding rolls of wiring and godawful cheeses and worn socks left right and centre but still coming up empty on the popcorn front.

“Brothers. Like these kids here on TV. We’d stick together through anything.”

“Have you been drinking again? Because that’s not quite true. A, I’m not a guy. B, the Major would so kick you to the curb if it came to it. And…”

Jacobi stiffens and immediately sounds more like himself. “The Major would not ‘kick me to the curb if it came to it’.”

Maxwell snorts. “Not you? Not his right-hand man?”

“Not you either, Alana. Have a little faith. Just cause he’s a bad guy, doesn’t make him a _bad person_.”

“Ding dong! Wrong!” Maxwell gives up in her sugary snack search, throwing everything back into the bag haphazardly but the explosives which she decides are better left to the expert. “Regardless, we’re all bad people, and that means we don’t get to be the brave band of brothers.”

“Oh boy. Do we get to be the sissy sect of sisters instead?”

Maxwell lobs a pillow at his head. War ensues.

* * *

 “You shouldn’t trust him, Daniel,” she says sleepily later that evening, lying back to back in the single bed. “You have to know he’d gamble you to get a job done. He’d replace us like-” she snaps her fingers.

“I don’t know that. You’re just jealous because he took the double room and made us share.”

 _And I do know that but I trust him anyway because it may be day three of this stakeout with nothing to show for it but he still changed my life and made me stronger and I would be dead ten times without him,_ is what he really means but doesn’t add. Instead, he has a warning of his own.

“You know what he’ll do if he suspects you’re not absolutely loyal to him, right? It involves saws and fingers in case you were wondering. And a speech ten times longer than the whiskey one.”

“Oh, I’m loyal. I just… don’t trust anyone. Especially when they’re calling the shots.”

“That must be lonely for you.”

“Brzzt brzzt. Hello, Goddard Futuristics? Oh, hi Rachel! Can you let Mr Cutter know that Jacobi’s in the wrong job role? Yeah, you should let him work in therapy right away since he so loves to psychoanalyse everybody.”

“Ha-ha, you’re _so_ funny.”

“I know, it’s part of my inexorable charm.” Maxwell shifts uncomfortably, accidentally elbowing Jacobi in the back. “Sorry.”

“Do we actually have a therapy department?”

“Yeah, duh: it’s Goddard. They have fingers in literally every pie and give us very traumatising jobs to do. Very _sensitive_ traumatising jobs to do. I’d visit it some time. They’re really overly interested in my mom-”

Jacobi, however, is tuning her out. “Talk about sensitive, you hear that?”

And they both lie there and hear a footstep, two, the click of a safety catch and it’s time to go.

* * *

FLORIDA

They don’t mention trust and brotherhood again until they’re in a Goddard Futuristics hospital and Jacobi’s got a brand new scar running across his stomach where he shoved his way between the Major and a knife.

“I can’t believe you didn’t bring me grapes. They’re a classic sickbed food.”

“You hate grapes! You hate fruit! I’ve never seen you eat anything more nutritious than a cheeseburger!” She lowers her voice a little. “How are your new internal organs working out?”

“Ah, you know,” he mumbles. “They’re kind of… metallic-y”

Maxwell’s bottom lip starts to wobble. “Oh _Jacobi_. Do you realise how long I had to hold your guts in for? I thought you were going to die.”

“Sentimentality doesn’t suit you, Maxwell. Save the tears for my funeral. I’m counting on you to show up for that one, by the way.”

“Stop being morbid!” She perches awkwardly on the end of the bed, playing with her tablet whilst she talks. Playing maybe isn’t the operative word. Knowing Maxwell, she’s equally likely to be designing a virus that could blow out all of Wall Street or playing Temple Run. “What did the Major say?”

“‘That was a highly irresponsible move! Your job is to blow things up, not get yourself stabbed!’” His impression of Kepler is almost spot on, if a bit more subdued than usual. “I’m on a week’s suspension.”

“Wow. He’s really good at both gratitude and sympathy.”

“I’m sure it’s just his way of saying ‘Thank you for saving my skin.’ I told him ‘you’re welcome’ anyhow.”

“You think over what I said in Prague? About brotherhood?” Maxwell eyes the camera in the corner of the room for the minutest of milliseconds, but Jacobi gets it. Best not to tell Cutter too much about loyalties and where they may or may not lie.

“Yes, and I still disagree with you.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind on some things.”

“Hmm?”

“I kind of only realised it when you were on the way out: I trust _you_ , Daniel.”

“Oh.” He thinks this over for a moment, and then his face breaks into a Cheshire-cat grin. “Trust you too, Alana.”

She passes him the tablet. “And for when you feel a bit better, I’ve just pirated all of that dumb kids cartoon for you. Subbed and everything. Beats grapes, huh?”

“You’re the best.”

“Naturally. _We’re_ the best. We’re brothers. Well, siblings. Well-”

“Maxwell. You’re the best. Accept the compliment. Now, _if_ you don’t mind, I’ve got four hundred episodes to get through...”

She grins and leaves him to it.


End file.
